Google SEO ’13 – Penguins, Pandas & Hummingbird

Google SEO flashback all the way back to 2013. Do you ask yourself, “Why should I care about Google’s zoo animals?” Well, if you are in business and you want potential customers to find you somewhere on the internet, respecting Google’s algorithms are a must These animals are your guidelines in what Google wants to see to help you appear in a search in your area. Sure, there are other search engines (Yahoo!/Bing, Ask, Dogpile, etc.) but if you are asking questions like the one proposed at the beginning of the article, it would be best for you to just step in line with Google and use your creativity in other places for your business. Of course, there are those who enjoy doing it the hard way and will ignore the fact that internet searchers use Google 4 out of 5 times. Whatever your position, following are some quick explanation of the Google algorithm updates in 2013.

In 2013, Google set some very strict boundaries that sent webmasters back the drawing board to rethink their Google SEO strategies. One huge one was link devaluation, seemingly Panda’s (and Penguin’s) mission. Older sites that were built on link farms were crushed in 2013. Google had been tightening the cinch for a long and the continuous algorithm updates made clear – Google is serious about relevant links. Overall, Panda’s purpose is to bring high quality and content sites on the top of search engine rankings. Ways to appease Panda? Don’t over optimize pages, increase focus on brand awareness and social media networks.

The Penguin has a taste for relevant and original content, website SEO techniques that does not include keyword stuffing, cloaking and other “Black-Hat” SEO techniques. Penguin’s purpose is similar to Panda; both are deployed by Google to serve high-quality websites with relevant content at the top of the search engine results page. The answer to Penguin is good content. Content is still King!

One more of Google’s animals made an appearance in 2013, the Hummingbird. This flighty algorithm update impacted searches by returning results after the search engine determine the intent and contextual meaning of the terms used in a query. A lot of us type a full question in the search box. This update is intended to help deliver better results for that particular type of search, even when a particular page is not optimized for the long-tail query.

The steady basic mantra for search engine optimization / SEO is good content, make connections through the internet to get relevant links and you are good to go. Of course, there are still plenty of expert strategies to help this along.